UPDATE 1-Death toll from Oklahoma tornado rises to six

* More than 120 tornadoes reported in two-day outbreak

* Twisters hit less-populated parts of Kansas, Oklahoma

By Steve Olafson

OKLAHOMA CITY, April 16 The death toll rose to
six from a tornado that ripped through an Oklahoma town during a
weekend outbreak of dozens of twisters across the Great Plains,
officials said on Mon day.

While storms were still breaking out from the Midwest into
the Appalachian Mountains region, the threat of more tornadoes
had declined, meteorologists said.

The sixth Oklahoma victim died after being flown to a Texas
hospital for treatment, following injuries received when the
tornado struck the northwestern Oklahoma town of Woodward early
on Sun day, said Amy Elliott, spokeswoman for the Oklahoma
Medical Examiner's Office.

Three young girls and two other adults were also killed in
the Woodward tornado, Elliott said.

More than 120 tornadoes were reported in the outbreak on
Saturday and Sunday, which mainly hit less-populated areas of
Kansas and Oklahoma, said Henry Margusity, an AccuWeather.com
senior meteorologist.

The storms skipped through what is often called "Tornado
Alley" in the U.S. Central and Southern Plains, but mostly
struck rural areas, sparing the region from worse damage.

Twisters just missed the most densely populated areas of
Wichita, Kansas, Margusity said.

Greg Carbin, warning coordination meteorologist for the
National Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma, said that,
after duplicate reports are eliminated, 75 tornadoes "is
probably a reasonable estimate" for the total.

On Monday, the front was moving east and north toward
Canada, stretching from Texas to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan
with a much-diminished threat from tornadoes, Carbin said.

"There is still a chance along this line of storms that you
might see some increase in thunderstorm activity as the system
moves through the Appalachians, but overall the potential is
much reduced from what it was over the weekend," Carbin said.

The twister caught many unaware in Woodward, a town of
12,000 people, when storm sirens failed to sound after lightning
apparently disabled the warning system, Mayor Roscoe Hill said
on Sun day.

The Woodward tornado was given an EF-3 preliminary rating on
M onday, said John Pike, a meteorologist with the National
Weather Service forecast office in Norman, Oklahoma. EF-3
tornadoes generate speeds of 136 to 165 miles (217 to 266 km)
per hour.

A tornado that struck Woodward in April 1947 still ranks as
the deadliest in Oklahoma history, with 116 people killed,
according to the National Weather Service.

The storms left Great Plains states residents cleaning up
from damage that left thousands without power in Kansas, hit an
aircraft fuselage production facility, and damaged up to 90
percent of homes and buildings in tiny Thurman, Iowa, population
250. Only minor injuries were reported in Thurman.

WICHITA POPULATION SKIRTED

The storm damaged a hangar at McConnell Air Force Base in
Wichita and destroyed several nearby homes, leaving thousands
without power, but it missed downtown and heavily populated
neighborhoods, authorities said.

The Wichita tornado, part of a "super cell" storm that
produced tornadoes in Kansas for about two hours on Saturday
night, has received a preliminary EF-3 rating, said Robb Lawson,
a National Weather Service meteorologist in Wichita.

The tornado damaged the roof and knocked out power to a
Spirit Aerosystems production facility in Wichita that
manufactures fuselages for Boeing's 7-series airplanes,
forcing it to suspend operations at least through Tuesday.

The company said it expects production to be disrupted in
the short term, affecting delivery, though production equipment
appeared to be largely unaffected.

The strongest tornado in Kansas from the outbreak was an
EF-4 near Kanopolis Lake about 70 miles (110 km) north of
Wichita that demolished a house and caused extensive tree
damage, Lawson said. A family had fled the house and were not
injured, he said.

The U.S. tornado season started early this year, with
twisters already blamed for 63 deaths in 2012 in the Midwest and
South, raising concerns that this year would be a repeat of
2011, the deadliest tornado year in nearly a century.

Some 550 people died in tornadoes last year, including 316
killed in an April outbreak in five Southern states, and 161
people in Joplin, Missouri, the following month.

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